So yeah. This has been itching at me for awhile, and I thought it might be fun to debate.

What does the Foundation do with dead bodies? I mean, even if you don't buy into that "monthly D-Class termination" stuff, the Foundation must generate an ungodly number of dead people. Mass cremation seems logical, but then what do they do with the ashes? Let us discuss.

In my personal headcannon the Foundation immediately suspends all test protocols that result in a subject's death, D-Classes don't face monthly termination, and the infrequent containment breaches that do occur result in realistic casualty numbers (1-3 killed, several injured).

The bulk of deaths of foundation personnel occur when performing field work, in which cases bodies are typically either unrecoverable, or if they are intact they are returned to the family, otherwise cremated.

I think if you view the Foundation-verse as as riddled with death as some articles would suggest then you pretty much just have to have 2000 in your headcannon, which lowers the stakes on everything that happens to such a level it just isn't entertaining anymore. No suspense if you buy into the existence of the reset button, or I suppose buttons, since there a couple others that do the same thing.

I think if you view the Foundation-verse as as riddled with death as some articles would suggest then you pretty much just have to have 2000 in your headcannon, which lowers the stakes on everything that happens to such a level it just isn't entertaining anymore.

Very much this. Not only is including all 2000+ SCPs in head canon less less interesting, but it's near unbelievable. The Foundation would need an unrealistic amount of control just to watch all the death machines and monsters thrown everywhere across the world.

It's easier to have a headcanon where maybe 500 to 1000 exist, maybe even less. Enough safe objects to keep hidden, enough letters to pose a threat to society, and enough room for other things like Thaumiel. Overall a lot less dead bodies as well.

Well, my own headcanon is basically, "A Foundation-issue boot stomping on an anomalous face forever," so some of the more fantastical elements of this site's fiction are within normal limits to me. Idunno.

Flouro-Antimonic acid: Corrodes through everything except Teflon, leaves minimal organic goop in its wake, and said goop can be incinerated to produce even more minimal ashes, which can be dumped in say a lake, or some remote woods, or a trash can to be taken to a dump.

I don't count D-Class terminations, because 1) Seriously, no, that's dumb, and 2) I don't think too hard about D-Class outside of the context of specific articles. D-Class is a wibbbly-wobbly trope that serves a purpose, and going deeper than that leads to places like Chinese political prisoners and US mandatory sentences and it gets unpleasant.

So, I see it like this: The sources of casualties in order of decreasing magnitude go like this:
1) Clashes with violent GOIs (either in base raids or in the field)
2) Containment-dictated and breach-related deaths (D-Class, researchers, security)
3) Natural attrition and non-anomalous service fatalities (Car accidents, industrial accidents)
4) MTF casualties (only this low because MTFs are such a small part of the population)

I figure, if any human remains were subject to potential contagion of anomalous abilities or effects, including field ops or containment efforts involving not-well-understood SCPs, they're provisionally contained. There may be morgues specifically for anomalous remains, but that seems like a major cross-contamination possibility.

If their means of death are potentially enlightening for researchers on an SCP, they go in cold storage.

If their deaths are demonstrable not anomalous in nature, I figure they're either buried on Foundation-owned grave-sites or returned to their families according to their Personnel Class, Clearance Level, and level of disconnection with the outside world. Securing these grave-sites seems like a major pain in the ass, but everything the Foundation has to deal with is a major pain in the ass. Whether the graves are unmarked or not is up to the reader. It sounds really cool on a narrative level, but is honestly probably incredibly impractical. Imagine if you needed to go dig up the lead researcher of SCP-XtyX to make sure he hadn't spontaneously reincarnated.

Also, for the "if there's even enough left to bury" argument, there's an NPR interview I remember here (Warning if you listen, it gets gross) about the Marine Corps mortuary affairs units that leads me to think that that's actually a much larger problem. Not that the Foundation has a no-man-left-behind policy, but there are probably dozens of procedural, political, and practical reasons they need to recover or cover up for their fallen operatives.

Edit: Also, thinking about it, writing about SCP cross-contamination in a morgue or graveyard could be an interesting concept, if you got a good mix of SCPs and it didn't just turn into a boring zombie story.

Corpses that are deemed to be safe to dispose of and are not subjected to the wishes made by the deceased and/or their loved ones, are used as resources by a peculiar corporation known as Soap from Corpses Products Inc.